


Rite of Emergence Girls' Night

by sapphose



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: s07e20 The Changing Face of Evil, but the romance is not really my main focus here, references to ezri dax/julian bashir, references to ezri dax/worf, references to jadzia dax/lenara khan, references to jadzia dax/worf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24901015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: Ezri performs the Rite of Emergence to ask Jadzia for advice.Set during Season 7 Episode 20, "The Changing Face of Evil," and references many others.
Relationships: Ezri Dax & Jadzia Dax
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Rite of Emergence Girls' Night

_I’nora, ja’kala vok..’za Ezri… zhian’tara rek… pora’al zheem Dax… tanas rhem Jadzia_

Ezri hadn’t been sure what to expect, when she began the Rite of Emergence. Having Joran around had made her itch, a skin-prickling discomfort that wouldn’t go away. Everything felt _wrong_ when he stepped out of the mirror, even before he spoke a word.

It's different with Jadzia. This time, there is no uneasy tension, no ghostly spiders crawling on her skin.

Jadzia- the memory of Jadzia? the hallucination?- immediately plops on the couch and pops an icoberry into her mouth from the bowl on the coffee table.

“Mmm, I forgot how much I like these.”

Ezri stares. The person in front of her seems so _real_ , and so relaxed. As if she’s just a coworker popping by for a chat and a snack after a shift change.

 _She’s not really here_ , Ezri reminds herself. Joran had felt alive, too, but, as Odo had reminded her, she was only talking to herself.

“You can’t be eating that,” Ezri says, nodding to the icoberries. There are now five fewer than when the ritual started.

“Why not?”

Six.

“You’re inside my head. You’re not really here.”

Jadzia smiles, and her smile seems real, too. Warm and friendly.

Seven.

“So maybe you’re the one eating them,” Jadzia suggests. “Still tastes good.”

Does that mean that, when this ends, she’ll remember eating icoberries? Will she remember as Ezri or Jadzia? Which of them is really experiencing it?

That’s the kind of question Trill philosophers could debate for ages. It gives Ezri a headache.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should have gone to talk to someone else about her feelings, someone outside of her own head. Like Benjamin. Or Kira.

“I’m glad you slept with Worf,” Jadzia announces, and Ezri winces. She has to admit that what happened with Worf was one of the things that compelled her to attempt the Rite of Emergence again… but shame and uncertainty and confusion stick in her throat when she thinks about it.

And she certainly hadn’t expected Jadzia to be _happy_ about it.

“Why?”

Ezri knows that Jadzia was flirtatious, but also a devoted wife passionately in love with her husband. Surely she would feel at least a little bit jealous? Can you be jealous of your future self? Or is it more of a future half-self?

Ezri becomes aware of the slight, almost imperceptible shifting around her, and her stomach rolls. _Oh, no_. Existential questions about the nature of existence definitely do not improve her spacesickness.

She exhales slowly and sinks into the couch, trying to think soothing, non-nauseating thoughts. Jadzia watches her with bright, curious eyes.

“Do you remember when we went to Risa with Julian and Leeta?”

“How could I forget?” Ezri replies ruefully. “Worf joined that awful group.”

Emotions are woven into memories, feelings entwined with the events themselves. Jadzia had gotten nothing but satisfaction out of watching Worf finally knock out the leader of the New Essentialists. And since Jadzia had enjoyed it, Ezri has to suppress a smile recalling the look on Fullerton’s face.

When she remembers this conversation, will Jadzia’s emotions seep in?

Ezri’s stomach bubbles. _No existential questions_ , she reminds herself. _Focus_. And she tries hard to train her gaze on those sharp blue eyes, to listen, to breathe deeply.

Jadzia is still talking about Worf.

“He told me then that restraint had become part of who he is. But that’s no way for a person to live. Worf has to lose control once in a while. Act on impulse. It’s good for him.”

Ezri looks down at her hands.

“It wasn’t good for me.”

“Klingon sex can be rough. I know it’s painful if you aren’t prepared for it.”

Ezri can’t see Jadzia’s face, but she can hear the sympathy in her tone. _No, this is not the conversation I want to have right now._

“It’s not that,” Ezri corrects, and clears her throat. She can feel the blush burning in her cheeks. “It’s… He wanted me to be you. And I’m not.”

She risks a glance over at Jadzia, to see the reaction.

The previous host’s face is thoughtful.

“No, you’re right. You’re not.” Jadzia reaches out and lays a kind hand on Ezri’s shoulder. “You’re exactly who you’re supposed to be. You’re Ezri.”

Ezri’s eyes ache, and she closes them, trying to will away the pricking of tears. Things have gotten bad, if a memory… dream? Hallucination? If _whatever this is_ can make her cry.

She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to hear someone say that.

Growing up with a titan of a mother and two brothers who didn’t know how to fight back (or who didn’t see the need to), Ezri has gotten used to creating her own comfort. It’s one of the things that drew her to being a counselor. She knows what it feels like to need someone just to say, “I hear you. I see you. You have a right to feel the way you do.”

Even coming from the voice inside her head, it’s nice to hear.

When Ezri opens her eyes, Jadzia is still there. The hand on her shoulder still feels real, its weight and pressure a gift, grounding her from spinning off into space.

Is this really what Jadzia would be like? Or is it just wishful thinking?

“Are you here? In the symbiont, I mean.” Ezri gestures uselessly at her stomach, as if clarification is needed. “Or are you in Sto’vo’kor, like Worf thinks?”

Jadzia chuckles at that. She squeezes Ezri’s shoulder before dropping her hands back into her own lap.

“Are you asking me if there’s an afterlife?” Jadzia raises her eyebrows, amused.

“I guess so.”

“Sorry.” Jadzia doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “You only get access to memories up until the moment of death.”

Ezri shivers, phantom pains shooting across her torso. Flashes of fiery light flicker at the corner of her eyes.

 _This isn’t real. This isn’t my memory._ She closes her eyes and inhales for a count of ten, exhales for a count of twelve. _I’m in my room. I’m safe_.

When she opens her eyes, the pain is gone.

“That’s another thing. How do you deal with remembering death?” Ezri asks. She’s gotten better at it. In the beginning, she would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, sides heaving, limbs flailing, trapped in a tangle of blankets, convinced she was engulfed in pah wraith energy or riddled with shrapnel from a shuttle crash. She’s learned meditation techniques and self-talk since then, but sometimes the nightmares still come.

“It’s one of the things they prepared me for, before I joined.” Jadzia’s voice sounds truly sorry now.

“Lucky you,” Ezri mutters. _It figures_.

“I don’t know.” Jadzia shrugs. “Part of me thinks you’re lucky you never had to be an initiate. I still remember what it felt like when Curzon terminated my training and told the Symbiosis Commission to reject my application.”

Because Jadzia remembers it, Ezri does too, and she feels the sting. But she also remembers the determination that came afterwards, and the taste of victory when her re-application was accepted.

“It ended up being part of what made you the person you are,” Ezri reminds her.

“Maybe,” Jadzia concedes. “But at the time, it didn’t feel so good.”

The bowl of icoberries is now only half full.

Another memory arises, of itchy, swollen spots.

“Aren’t you allergic to icoberries?”

Jadzia grins.

“I was. You aren’t. Lucky for me, huh?”

Jadzia reaches an empty hand towards Ezri’s right ear. When she pulls it back, four round berries wink at Ezri, one between each of Jadzia’s fingers.

Ezri watches, fascinated.

“That’s one of Tobin’s magic tricks,” Jadzia explains, eyes sparkling. “Want to try it?”

Ezri does, but thinking about it brings back the memory of Jadzia teaching Julian how to pull latinum out of Quark’s ears. And thinking about Julian brings back Ezri’s own memories, and the sweet, low voice- _“Can’t tell you how glad I am to see you again_.”

She hesitates before asking her next question. But the good thing about talking to a voice in your head is that it isn’t exactly going to go out and share your secrets.

“Do you think I should tell Julian how I feel about him?”

“Do you want to?”

Ezri bites her lip, thinking.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Yes.” She sighs and draws her legs up onto the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees, holding herself together. “But what if it’s the thing with Worf all over again? Maybe he only wants me because he thinks I’ll be you.”

To be fair to Julian, he’s had multiple relationships since he stopped pursuing Jadzia. But fear is hard to argue with, even for a counselor.

“Did Worf ever act interested in you before that night? Romantically, I mean.”

Ezri shakes her head. _No_.

“Did he try to talk with you or spend time with you?” Jadzia continues. “Was he even remotely friendly?”

 _Friendly_ is a difficult thing to assess with Worf. Ezri remembers his stony expression when they first met, but also the concern he tried to disguise when he found her wandering the station alone late at night.

“He cared. But mostly he tried to stay away from me. It was a hard adjustment. He didn’t know how to grieve you while I was there.” She’s grateful for the friendship that they are finding now, the ability to have a drink in Quark’s and ask for advice, but it’s new.

Jadzia leans back, considering.

“Was Julian like that?” she asks.

“No.” Ezri thinks about drinking hot Fanalian toddies in the replimat, holding his warm hand between her own. “He was one of the first people to make me feel really welcome on the station.”

Before Julian approached her, she had feared that Benjamin and Quark would be the only ones to acknowledge her existence.

“Then you know it won’t be the same thing,” Jadzia reasons. “Because Worf and Julian aren’t the same person.”

It sounds so simple, said out loud like that. Ezri exhales tension, lowering her feet to the floor.

“You told Julian once that he was too young for you,” she recalls.

“He’s matured a lot since then. Besides, you’re younger than me.”

“But I’m older than you were.” In her twenties, going on 357.

“Dax is. Ezri isn’t.” Jadzia makes that sound simple, too.

“How do you tell them apart?”

“Practice.” Jadzia nudges Ezri with her elbow, and her smile looks almost proud. “You’re getting better at it. It just takes time.”

Ezri finds herself matching Jadzia’s smile. She is beginning to understand what Garak meant when he said that Jadzia had been _vital, alive_. Even as a ghost, she radiates energy and confidence.

Maybe, with time, Ezri can be that confident too.

Most of the Dax hosts have had strong self-esteem, with the exception of Tobin.

What about after Ezri? What will future hosts do with the tangled mess of emotions and memories that she’ll leave behind?

But that thought comes with a sickening lurch in Ezri’s stomach, and she has to press both hands against her thighs to steady herself. The smile slips away as she remembers the cold fear in her blood, aboard an alien enemy ship.

“We almost died. When the Breen captured us.” She confides it more to her shoes than to Jadzia, unwilling to lift her eyes.

“Almost,” Jadzia agrees. She pauses, as if waiting for Ezri to say more.

Ezri feels guilty, and when she feels guilty, she feels queasy.

 _Breathe_ , she instructs herself. _In… out… in… out…_

“Is it selfish of me to stay here?” Ezri knots her hands together, over her abdominal pouch, where she knows the symbiont lives inside of her. “Dax has lasted for hundreds of years. Maybe I should ask for a safer posting.”

“Ezri, the Breen attacked Starfleet headquarters. Nowhere is safe.”

Jadzia places a hand over Ezri’s, and Ezri lets out a shaky breath.

“But if I die, and the Dax symbiont doesn’t get passed along…”

“Then it doesn’t get passed along.” Jadzia’s voice is gentle, but firm. “It happens. New symbionts get bred, and Trill civilization will continue.”

Ezri can feel tears clustering behind her eyes again, and she’s grateful for the soft, insistent hand atop her own.

“You almost ended the chain for Lenara Khan.”

“Almost.”

Ezri remembers regret, and she looks up, searching Jadzia’s face. 

“Is that why you can talk about it so casually?”

“I’ve thought about this a lot, Ezri. Especially after the war started.” Jadzia’s eyes look older than the rest of her youthful face. “You know how many times I almost died out in space. I did wonder if I should go back to Trill, to preserve the legacy. But if every joined Trill did that, they wouldn’t create any memories worth passing on. And in the end, I didn’t die on the Defiant or in the Gamma Quadrant. It happened in a shrine.”

“But if you weren’t on the station, Dukat wouldn’t have killed you.”

“No,” Jadzia admits, “but something else would have. I could have gotten into an accident, or gotten sick, or just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ship could have had a stasis malfunction with no Trill onboard to do what you did. Nobody lives forever, Ezri. Not even a symbiont.”

 _I’m in my room. I’m safe_. Inhale for ten, exhale for twelve.

Ezri leans sideways and rests her head against Jadzia’s shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut tight.

“I’m scared we’re going to lose the war,” she confesses, in a voice so quiet she doesn’t know if she wants to be heard.

Jadzia lifts her hand away, and for a moment Ezri is afraid she’s done the wrong thing. Relief floods her when Jadzia’s arm slips behind her, wrapping around her shoulders.

“You might. But you also might win.”

The tears slip out silently, and Ezri shakes, and lets Jadzia hold her together.

For a few moments, they sit like this, in quiet. And even if Ezri knows it’s not quite real, it still feels better than crying alone.

When her breath is no longer quite so ragged, and she no longer trembles, Ezri pulls back and dries her eyes with the cuff of her uniform sleeve. Jadzia looks at her kindly, and slips three more icoberries into her mouth.

“You sure you don’t want one of these?” she asks, and gestures to the bowl, which is somehow now only a quarter full.

Ezri lets out a watery laugh, and it feels _good_ to have something to laugh about.

“If you keep eating them, you’re going to get sick,” she warns. “I mean, _I’m_ going to get sick.”

Jadzia laughs too.

“Hey, at least it’ll be a break from feeling spacesick.”

Ezri grimaces. Crying isn’t exactly pleasant- her nose is runny and her eyes are sore- but at least it distracts her rebellious stomach from the station’s constant motion.

“Am I really the first host to get spacesick?” If her theory is correct, and it results from guilt about Torias’ death, then why should she be the only one impacted?

“Yes. Think of it this way- you’re adding something new to the Dax collective memory.”

It’s not really that funny, but Ezri giggles all the same, just for the release that comes with laughing.

“Worf said that this is something you and I have in common. Making jokes in tense situations. Do you think Dax has a sense of humor? Or is it you Jadzia and me Ezri?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that sometimes the only way to deal with stress is to smile at it.” As if to demonstrate her point, Jadzia flashes a brilliant grin. Ezri understands how someone could fall in love with a smile like that.

“Did joining with Dax make you so good at giving advice? Or were you like that before?”

“You’ve got my memories. What do you think?”

Ezri thinks about Benjamin, the earnest hopefulness in his eyes when she introduced herself on earth. And about watching Garak in the grip of a panic attack, wishing desperately for a way to help.

“I think…” She chews on the thought, searching for words. “I think when someone is counting on you for advice, you learn how to give it.”

Jadzia nods.

“Is that based on your experience or mine?”

“Both.”

Ezri looks down at the handful of icoberries in the bowl and takes one. Sweet juice bursts into her mouth when she bites down.

“You know something, Ezri?” Jadzia lowers her voice to a confidential tone, as if sharing a secret. “I like you.”

Ezri can feel a buzzing warmth spread through her when she hears that, the same one she feels when Benjamin says something like _Well done, old man_. She isn’t used to praise, and she lets it fill her.

“Do you think that someday I’ll be… I don’t know. I guess I’m wondering if you think that maybe, in the future, Dax won’t feel like a mistake. That I’ll be worthy of being a host.”

Jadzia regards Ezri frankly.

“I think you already are.”

The moment can’t last forever. Ezri has to put Jadzia back, and emerge into the world that exists outside her head. 

_J’zui vok Ezri… Shay hal ba'sha… I’nora, ja’kala vok… zheem Dax… nah sass ai an… D’za-oo ba'zheest… Jadzia rhee jerh heda… Tu Dax noh zhian’vok… J’zui Jadzia rhem tanas Ezri._

Ezri looks intently at the mirror. In the reflection of her room, she can see an empty couch, and an empty bowl of icoberries on the table. 

Inside, she feels full.


End file.
